


we pick ourselves undone

by butwewillstay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Post-Episode: s03e17 Pusher
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25562605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butwewillstay/pseuds/butwewillstay
Summary: "As she stands beneath the warm water, she tries not to think about how easily she could have been washing Mulder’s blood off of her right now. If that bullet had been in a different chamber, he would be dead. Or she might be the one in an uninviting hospital room breathing through a ventilator, or worse."-After Modell's game of Russian Roulette, Mulder and Scully talk.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	we pick ourselves undone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Bastille's "Flaws"

The clanging of the fire alarm is loud, but all Scully can hear are the soft  _ clicks _ as Mulder fires empty chambers from Modell’s revolver. She knows she should tell him that he can stop, that Modell is already down and the SWAT agents swarming around them have him covered. 

But she cannot speak, so she just watches his face contort with anger and something she thinks might be fear. After a minute, Mulder finally does stop and sinks back into his chair. He hands her the revolver silently. The barrel is warm from being fired, and it feels like it’s burning her hand even though it’s nowhere hot enough to do so. He’d given her a gun earlier, too, and she wonders if it might have turned out better if he’d just kept it. 

She should comfort him, as his friend, and make sure he’s okay, as a doctor and his partner. She does neither and instead lets an agent she does not recognize lead her out of the room to take her statement. 

-

When she has gone through the chronology of events twice and answered several other pointless and repetitive questions, the young agent allows her to leave. He does not question her actions (or lack thereof) or what she would have done if Mulder had shot himself or her. She’s glad, because she isn’t quite sure if she has an answer.

Mulder is not at the taped-off hospital room that still has a puddle of Modell’s blood pooled next to the overturned table (although Modell himself has been transported to another ward, and hooked up to a ventilator) when she goes to look for him, and one of the junior agents informs her that Mulder has left. 

She sighs and calls a cab to take her home. 

-

Scully calls Mulder when she gets back to her apartment because she knows he has a tendency to feel guilty for things out of his control, but he doesn’t answer his cell (what would she have said if he did?). So she feeds Queequeg and takes a shower. 

As she stands beneath the warm water, she tries not to think about how easily she could have been washing Mulder’s blood off of her right now. If that bullet had been in a different chamber, he would be dead. Or she might be the one in an uninviting hospital room breathing through a ventilator (for the second time in as many years!) or worse. 

When she steps out of the shower, she pulls on pajamas even though it is barely the afternoon. She doesn’t bother to blow-dry her hair, even though she knows it will frizz up when it dries. She is too drained from the events of the day and doesn’t have enough energy to care. 

There are case notes to type up, and reports to file; but every time she thinks about the case all she can picture is Modell’s smirk and a shiny barrel of a gun pointed at her chest and Mulder’s terrifying blank expression as he presses the revolver to his head, so she decides to figure it out tomorrow. She orders a pizza because she doesn’t feel like cooking, and when someone knocks on her door she opens it before she realizes that it is far too soon for it to be the pizza. 

Mulder has changed since the hospital, probably because his clothes were splattered with Modell’s blood, and is now wearing an Oxford sweatshirt and jeans. He does not meet her gaze.

“Mulder?” She asks softly, and his eyes find hers. 

“Sorry I ditched you earlier,” He says, and she opens the door wider to let him in. “I came to apologize.”

“For ditching me?” She asks, even though they both know that’s not what he means. He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. It’s gone just as quickly as it appears.

“For everything. Scully, I could have killed you.” He says quietly, and she steps forward without thinking and grasps his hand, a lifeline strung between them.

“It’s not your fault,” She whispers. “It was Modell. And you stopped him.”

“I didn’t do anything,” He says harshly, and Scully knows he’s not angry at her but at himself. “I  _ couldn’t _ do anything. You were the one that stopped him. I just watched myself try to shoot you. You almost died,  _ again _ , because of me.”

“You almost died, too!” Her voice quavers as she tries to stifle tears, but then Mulder is hugging her and she presses her face against his sweatshirt and tries to steady her breathing. It had all happened so fast, and for a fraction of a second when he had turned that gun against himself she had thought he was dead. 

Everything has changed so much in the past few years, and she does not know what she would do if she had to go back to her previous life, before Mulder and the X-Files and their blind quest for the truth. 

“I don’t want to lose you,” She whispers against his chest, and Mulder tightens his grip on her body.

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” He says softly into her still-damp hair.

They stand in her entryway for a while, breathing in time with each other, until Scully does not feel as though Modell and his gun and his bone-chilling orders are looming over her anymore.

-

The pizza comes, and they eat it on her couch, the box laying open on her coffee table. They sit pressed together from shoulder to leg, so she feels each time he raises a slice to his mouth. She doesn’t mind. It’s a reminder that he is alive, and still here. 

They don’t talk about Modell. Everything they have to say has been said, through spoken or unspoken conversation. Instead, they flick through television channels and land on an old sitcom with terrible acting and distract themselves by critiquing it aloud to each other. 

Rationally, Scully knows that this coping mechanism of theirs is not a good idea. Their brazen codependency may hurt them eventually. But with their cases and the rest of the world locked outside of her apartment, she finds it a little easier to ignore her rational side.

They will need some time, she knows. Neither she nor Mulder is completely okay yet, but now, sitting side-by-side, she knows that eventually, they will be alright. 


End file.
